Your team breakdowns are always an interesting read, skidmark!
Nodding my head to most things you say, except a few things (but I will comment on things I agree with too
).
Alan Hatherly (145, 1): Oh! I’m the 1! Cool. I have to confess, I love an unconventional route to road racing. Not only because I find it a rootable story (especially in a sport that starts its hierarchies at a young age), but also because it’s such a blank slate to forecast in this game. I picked him as a cheap rider last year, not knowing what to expect about how he’d do as an XCO world champion at a more advanced age. And he showed promise doing well in the Saudi Tour, but then kind of had middling results and ended up with 145 points. Not a great pick, but not a spectacular flop to give up on. After all, JC Peraud came in at 33 and had a learning year before almost tripling his points year 2. Hatherly is double defending XCO champ and a few years younger than Peraud. I also read an interview where he said that by the time you realize what you could be doing better, it’s too late to implement it that season. So I’m hopeful he’ll take the lessons of last year into his prep for this year and be more of a Peraud than a Cink.
That said, he was literally the last addition to my team – I was uninspired by my reluctant cheap additions of Darren Rafferty and Jan Tratnik so I swapped them for him and a zero pointer. At this point in the cost chart, it’s more about managing upside risk (who do I not want to miss out on if they have a breakout year) rather than downside risk (what if they tank), and there’s not really a Brennan to worry about upside – at least that I identified, eep – so here we go. I think 500-800 is optimistic but not unrealistic.
The difference between Peraud's learning year and Hatherly's learning year was that Peraud was 8th in Paris-Nice, 4th in Pais Vasco, 6th in a strong field ahead of Samu, Klöden and Purito at Malhao, rode an almost exclusively WT schedule and rode a GT. And, perhaps most important of all, didn't still focus a lot on MTB as far as I know (don't see how he had time for that with all those race days). Hatherly won the WC in MTB again in 2025 and will continue mixing the two disciplines. His notable results on the road were in extremely weak fields. I see 800 points as completely out of the question and 500 as still wildly optimistic. One element in his favour though is the points-farming approach that Jayco have said they will take. And I also love the late-comers to the sport for this game. Don't know if I've actually picked that many of them over the years, but their potential for a rapid rise has always been very much at the forefront of my mind.
I strongly agree with your point about managing upside risk in the lower price ranges. A few picks will inevitably tank there anyway, so you mostly want to cover as many possible De Lies as possible. I just don't think Hatherly has that much upside compared to for example someone like Dunbar or Page who I picked or L'hote who I maybe should have picked. Or even Gualdi. But who knows, there's a reason why you're historically the most successful player in this game. I just feel like some of your super rare picks have a tendency to not turn out so well.
Like Grosu, Van de Paar, Van Bekkum etc.
Dani Martinez (121, 40): This is like groundhog day – every other year, Dani Martinez is relatively cheap in this game, and every year, I can’t find a single piece of information on why anyone thinks he did poorly the year before. So I just gotta take him on the blind trust that his yo-yoing in the 2020s of low scores in the odd years and high scores in the even years continues. I need someone with upside so that’s good enough for me!
He's the enigma of all enigmas. I've profited from Martinez both times when he's been a great pick, but this time I think it's one too many. Have decided to quit while I'm ahead (the Norwegian version of this expression is way more suitable, but whatever). Too many chefs on RBH these days and despite his Giro podium, he was just barely a great pick last time. Except a few days of looking ok in the Giro last year, he was pretty awful throughout 2025. The LBL result was in a big group sprint where the last guy in the group was 42nd. In his previous bad years he at least showed something: 5th in the Giro in 2021 and then won Algarve in 2023.
Andreas Kron (50, 38): I thought he was a good deal last year at the same price, and then he had another bad year with only 28 racing days, so let’s reset! I couldn’t find too much info about his return but being on the TdU startlist is good enough for me. At least if he has another anonymous year and doesn’t feature in races, I won’t have to listen to Carlton Kirby refer to him as “Andy” any time he’s on screen.
You gotta learn Scandinavian! There are a lot of great interviews with the Danish riders at feltet.dk. Kron had solved his back problems by the time he made his comeback in the summer, but then crashed and ended up with a small fracture in his sacrum. It was quite un-complicated and he could have returned to racing at the end of the season, but Uno-X decided that there was no point as he wouldn't be in great shape, and decided to focus on this season. He's been able to prepare really well and has even been on an altitude camp with other Uno-X riders. At least currently, there are no reasons why he can't have a normal season.
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